The best way to describe it is luxury camping – sleeping on loan mattresses and eating off a collapsible garden table, a deck that’s currently only a frame, but with a REALLY nice kitchen and bathroom and views to die for.

Outside’s more entertaining.

One day last week, we had at one time a 10 ton Mercedes truck, a digger, a bulldozer and 2 tractors – a 1957 Fergusson and a vintage Fiat – (all Patrick’s) – parked outside.

Plus Patrick who is so laid back that he almost falls asleep on his feet (but can turn his hand to ANYTHING), Ricky with his lovable-but-evil-looking Staffordshire terrier, Al, Charlie with a cone-shaped “you can all laugh at me, but you’ll all get skin cancer and I won’t” straw hat, who all drift in and out, fixing door handles, looking for errant wiring, hanging mirrors and finishing the deck substructure.

And then John turns up in an empty 10 tonner “just to check up on things”, Mark who lost his leg when a truck drove over a crowbar and rammed it into his knee and now has a peg leg (like Long John Silver but sans parrot and ear ring) in another 10 tonner with a load of gravel for the drive and “the other John” from up the road “for a look”.